We have heard a great deal lately about the "culture" of the San Francisco Police Department. First there was the announcement, following the release of the notorious Bayview station-house video, of a blue ribbon committee to study the department culture.

And now we have reports of the failure of the department's management culture to handle use-of-force reports effectively. To the extent that the volatile subject of force is added to the mix, the volume level of the discussion moves to a higher plane.

The idea that the Police Department cannot manage information very effectively is a problem of long standing. Following a Police Department graft scandal in the mid-1930s, the city hired a group of outside experts to survey the Police Department. Among its findings, the experts pointed out the department's inability to collect and process management information. San Franciscans held their collective civic noses while the Berkeley Police Department showed them how to implement the mandated Uniform Crime Reporting system.

In 1955, Chronicle reporter Charles Raudebaugh wrote a series of articles pointing out the managerial deficiencies in the Police Department. He pointed to the lack of adequate training, the failure to put two-way radios in unmarked cars, and other issues that reflected on the managerial ineffectiveness of the department's leaders.

In 1956, Mayor George Christopher brought in Bruce Smith Jr., the son of the man who had surveyed the department in the 1930s. He was astonished to find that many of the bad old habits had reasserted themselves. The department's response was to attack the messengers. Raudebaugh was vilified and the Bruce Smith was effectively run out of town. Any chance for real reform was put off for another generation.

And when help did come, it came from the outside. It was outsider Chief of Police Charles Gain who in 1976 finally got rid of the department's antiquated 19th century organizational form, and implemented many other much needed reforms before he too was removed.

But managerial deficiencies continued to manifest themselves. San Francisco was the last major California city to acquire a computer assisted dispatch system and 911 emergency telephone service. The latter was obtained only after Mayor Dianne Feinstein promised to lop off heads if it was not forthcoming.

Efforts more that 20 years ago to get any useable computerized management reports out of the city's elephantine main-frame computers were largely unsuccessful. The system could produce many reports that were not needed but none that were useful. Another scandal emerged in 2002 when it was revealed that the Police Department was unable able to track criminal case clearances completely.

It isn't just the Police Department, though. The 911 emergency telephone system was principally the responsibility of the Department of Electricity. And a review of recent Civil Grand Jury reports turns up critical findings about other departments, i.e. Muni, fire, juvenile probation and permits, which attest to similar management deficiencies.

Until well into the 20th century, San Francisco was the only one of the 10 most populous cities in the United States west of the Mississippi, at time when San Jose and Los Angeles were little more than wide spots in the road. This engendered a civic pride that persists to this day. It also bred a civic insularity which looked upon outsiders condescendingly.

During the early years of the 20th century, as other California cities began to grow, they adopted the principles of what was then called "scientific management:" business practices which allowed for work to be assigned effectively and monitored. San Franciscans, who already knew how to do everything, stood aloof. That attitude remains at the root of much of what is wrong.

Efforts to look elsewhere for solutions have repeatedly been thwarted with the claim that San Francisco is unique. When candidates for a top city job some years ago voiced concern about the diffuse authority and political structure in the city, an incumbent official declaimed, "If they don't have the skills to manage that problem, then they don't belong here. ... It's part of the environment, and the environment isn't going to change."

Computerized systems can help to provide the information needed to make informed decisions, but that will only happen if the environment - the city's management culture -- changes dramatically. Then the perennial revelations of managerial inefficiency can come to an end.

Current officials aren't responsible for the civic culture they inherited, but the responsibility to change that culture is theirs.